Wednesday, June 24, 2015

A Message for All 'Good Church People': The Truth About Racism

Say what you will about Facebook, but beyond the joy of connecting so easily with family and friends I have made the most interesting new associations, had my creativity inspired, and been informed by some really good thinking via this means of social networking.

Reverend Jarrett Banks, pastor of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Farmville, North Carolina published the following essay on his blogearlier this week. Although he writes with a southern perspective each of his five points issues a very important challenge to churches north of the Mason-Dixon Line and across the spectrum of Christian denominations. With his permission I have posted it here because it is vital that we all consider the elements of racism that still poison our society (not to mention our hearts) as we continue to try to live as followers of Jesus Christ in an increasingly multi-racial and multi-cultural nation.

I cannot close without adding that while I agree with current efforts to remove the Confederate 'stars and bars' battle flag from public grounds in various states and municipalities, I worry that this may be serving as a proxy argument, a distraction, from the gun issue. With the President of the United States and victims of gun violence I ask, "When we will we wake up to the extreme need for greater gun control in our country?"

Charleston Wake-Up Call: Five Thoughts

by Reverend Jarrett Banks

I
have heard many people call the massacre in Charleston a wake-up call for our
country. I believe it is specifically a wake-up call for predominately white
churches in our country. As a pastor of a predominately white church in the
South, here are five thoughts that have been awakened in me:

1.We must wake up to the reality that
racism is not only a wound from our country’s past, but it is a deadly virus
that still plagues us today. White preachers, including myself, have been often
afraid to use the “r-word” from our pulpits for fear of “stirring things up,”
as if we might reignite some fire that was put out in the 1960’s, or at least
by 2008, when we elected our first black president. We must wake up and boldly
preach against racism, in all of its current manifestations that are ablaze
today: personal racism; systemic racism; and the subtle racism that is
prevalent in the workplace, in the marketplace and even in the church, for
Jesus could not have been more clear when he said: “Love your neighbor as
yourself.

2.We must wake up to the reality that
preaching and working against racism is not “being political,” but it is being
“Christian.” When voting districts are re-drawn to limit poor black votes or
when laws are created that make it more difficult for poor black people to
vote, we must stand up and boldly proclaim the message of Jesus who came to
announce “good news to the poor.”

3.We must wake up to the reality that
hatred in this country is being defended by church folks who are calling it
“religious freedom.” In the United States of America, where we believe all
people are created equally, religious freedom never means the freedom to
discriminate. Slave-owners used the same religious-freedom arguments in the
nineteenth century to support slavery. Today, we do not tolerate people who
want to own slaves, nor should we tolerate anyone or respect the views if
anyone who wants to discriminate.

4.We must wake up to the reality that
“the oppression of Christians” in this nation and the “war on Christmas” that
we hear about every December has been manufactured by folks who loathe what
makes our country great, that is our cultural, ethnic, religious and racial
diversity. We need to also preach from our pulpits that it is this diversity
that makes us look most like the portrait of heaven we find in the book of
Revelation: “After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one
could count, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,
standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (7:9). We must wake up to
boldly voice our opposition to the purveyors of fear who are calling on people
to bear even more arms “to take our country back.” Furthermore, we must wake up
and tell the folks in our pews to please shut up, when they start
reminiscing about going back to the good old days of the 1950’s when we had
prayer in school. We need to be able to say: “You know, I have many of black
friends, and I have never once heard them talk about wanting to go back to
1950.”

5.We must wake up to the reality that
the most segregated hours in our country occur on Sunday mornings. We must find
ways to build bridges to bridge the gaps that we have created that prevent us
from worshipping and serving together. To stand against racism, hatred and
violence, to stand for social justice and equality for all, and to persuasively
speak truth to power, we must do it side by side, hand in hand, as one body,
one Church, serving one Lord.